IIT Bombay Demonstrates Simple and Fast Solution That Can Help India Fight Oxygen Crisis

IIT Bombay has announced that its professors have worked on an innovative solution that can address the issue of oxygen crisis in India. This project, which involved conversion of Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) Nitrogen unit to PSA Oxygen Unit, has achieved an oxygen production at 3.5 atm pressure, with a purity level of 93% to 96 %. The institute is also ready to help with the pan-India adoption of the solution.

This innovation has been achieved through a collaboration between IIT Bombay, Tata Consulting Engineers and Spantech Engineers, Mumbai, who deal with PSA Nitrogen and Oxygen plant production. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the organisations involved on an urgent basis to undertake the study, said a PIB release.

How Did IIT Bombay Convert Nitrogen into Oxygen?

Prof. Milind Atrey, Dean (research and development), IIT Bombay, who led the project said: “It has been done by fine-tuning the existing Nitrogen Plant setup and changing the molecular sieves from Carbon to Zeolite. Such nitrogen plants, which take air from the atmosphere as raw material, are available in various industrial plants across India. Therefore, each of them could potentially be converted into an oxygen generator, thus helping us tide over the current public health emergency.”

The set-up required to conduct this experiment was conducted in three days, and Spantech Engineers installed the required plant components as a skid at IIT Bombay for evaluation using the institute’s infrastructure at its Nitrogen facility at the refrigeration and cryogenics lab. Amit Sharma, managing director, Tata Consulting Engineers, said: “We are delighted to partner with IIT Bombay and Spantech Engineers, and contribute towards an innovative solution for emergency oxygen generation using existing infrastructure towards helping the country tide over the current crisis.”